To decide which options and texts the user will see in the My account page, go to YITH > Subscription > Customization.
Show the Resubscribe button on My Account > Subscriptions: Decide if you want the give the customer the option to resubscribe to the same subscription.
Maintain the same price of the previous subscription: Enable if you want the customer to pay the same price as before, disable to pay the actual price.
Show the Renew now button on My Account > Orders: Decide if user will be able to force the payment himself, if at least one failed payment attempt is registered (Note: each time the user forces a payment it counts as an attempt).
Pause/Cancel subscription style: Choose to either show the options as buttons or in a dropdown.
If you choose to show the options in a dropdown, you can edit the texts as shown below.
If the customer chooses any of the options from the My account page (pause, resume, cancel) a popup will appear. You are able to customize the text of these popups and the buttons in YITH > Subscription > Customization. In the images below you’ll see an example of the popup and its settings.
Pause subscription
Resume subscription
Cancel subscription
Finally, you can also customize the texts for the subscription plan switch as shown below.
The PayPal Standard settings are explained below, if you wish to see the settings of the other payment gateways, simply click on the one you are interested in.
PayPal Standard
Preliminary note: if you’re using WooCommerce 5.5 or higher, PayPal standard will be hidden by default, but you can reactivate it as explained here.
PayPal standard supports automatic recurring payments, so users don’t have to remember to pay the recurring fee. If the owed amount is not available in the users’ PayPal account, the subscription will be cancelled or will switch to “Overdue” or “Suspended” status (depending on the settings).To let the plugin work correctly, it is necessary that your PayPal account (compulsory for any type of business) is set to receive multi-currency payments. If you haven’t set this option in your PayPal account yet, follow the guidelines described below:
In Getting paid and managing my risk , click on update next to the entry Block Payments
Set the option ‘allow payments sent to me in a currency I do not hold’ to ‘yes, accept and convert theme to U.S.Dollars‘
Note: You can associate more than one subscription to the same user, however, users need to place separate orders for each subscription. The system used to integrate PayPal recurring payments doesn’t allow multiple subscriptions within the same order.
If you use PayPal Standard, the date for the payment cannot be edited in any way. It refers to the day when the first subscription payment occurred.
You can use any payment method activated in your WooCommerce to pay for a subscription, however, if it isn’t one of the supported payment methods, the customer will have to pay the renewal order manually.
To find out which payment gateways support automatic charges, please refer to this page.
How can I pay for a renewal order if a non-supported gateway has been selected?
One day before the renewal date, a new order will be generated automatically. This order will be visible for the users in ‘My account > My Subscriptions’.
Customers can just click on the ‘Pay’ button that will redirect them to checkout page and complete the payment with any gateway.
Here is a list of all the gateways supported by YITH Subscription plugin. You will be able to start automatic recurring payments with all of them, but the options allowed by each of them vary. You can compare them in the following table.
* In order to manage recurring payments it is necessary that the reference transactions are active on your PayPal account. Verify through PayPal support if they are active before implementing the payment method.
The plugin allows you to create new types of coupons:
Subscription sign-up discount: discount on sign-up fee (if any). The coupon can either remove a fixed price or a percentage of the sign-up fee.
Subscription recurring discount: discount on the subscription periodic fee. The coupon can either remove a fixed price or a percentage of each periodic fee.
Coupons can be configured in Marketing > Coupons, as well as for any WooCommerce default coupon.
When creating a coupon for the periodic fee, a new field will show in which you can choose whether to apply the discount on All recurring payments or only the first x payments. When selecting the second option, you must enter a value to specify the number of recurring payments to which the discount will apply.
This option can be useful also in case you want to offer special pricing on your subscriptions.
Let’s make an example. We want to offer the user three levels of payments for a subscription until reaching the regular price:
€9,99 at the order creation
€19,99 for the first recurring payment
€29,99 for the following recurring fees
We have created a monthly subscription at €29,99/month, with a one-month trial and a sign-up fee of €9,99.
Then we have created a recurring fixed coupon (€10) that will apply to one recurring payment.
When the user purchases the subscription, only the sign-up fee will be paid. The first month will be free due to the trial period and the first renewal will be discounted by €10. The regular price of €29,99 will be paid starting from the second renewal.
The discount applies directly during the purchase process. On the contrary, if the subscription includes a trial period or provides a synchronized payment date, the coupon will apply to the first renewal.
Apply coupons to an active subscription
If you want to offer a coupon to your customers with an active subscription, go to the subscription edit page and click on Apply coupon.
Enter the coupon code in the field as shown in the image above.
Click on OK and the discount will apply automatically to the next renewal(s), based on the coupon settings.
Please note – coupons can be applied to active subscriptions only if they are editable. For example, subscriptions paid with PayPal standard can’t be edited, hence, it isn’t possible to apply any coupon.
The payment date of the next payment of the old subscription remains unchanged.
Customer has credits
Customer is on credit when the amount of money paid for the ‘old’ subscription, is bigger than the amount that has to be paid for the ‘new’ subscription.
The switch takes place and the user will not get charged. The first payment of the ‘new’ subscription will take place when the ‘old’ subscription expires.
Customer in debt
Customer is in debt when the amount of money paid for the ‘old’ subscription, does not cover the amount of the ‘new’ subscription.
The switch takes place and the recurring payment of the ‘new’ subscription will take place when the ‘old’ one expires.
The customer will pay the difference between the two subscriptions calculated based on the payment due date.
Example
Monthly subscription purchased on June 2, € 20 / month (€ 0,67 / day). On June 18 the user decides to switch to a weekly subscription of € 15 / week (2,14 / day).
The user did not use 14 days of the ‘old’ subscription and since the deadline cannot be changed, the customer will have to pay (based on days): (2,14 – 0,66) * 14 days = € 20.72
The next recurring payment date will remain set for July 2nd and will continue weekly.
The date for the next payment is based on if the customer has credits or is in debt.
Customer has credits
The customer is on credit when the amount of money paid for the ‘old’ subscription, is bigger than the amount that has to be paid for the ‘new’ subscription.
The switch takes place and the recurring payment of the ‘new’subscription will be extended. The number of days of extension is based on the credit value.
Example 1
On 6 July a user subscribes to a monthly subscription of € 20 / month (€ 0,67 / day). That same day he decides to switch to the weekly subscription of € 15 (€ 2,14 / day).
The user therefore did not take advantage of 29 days of the monthly subscription which was € 0,67 per day, meaning he has 29 days * € 0,67 = € 19,43 on credit.
Since the ‘new’ subscription costs € 15 / week, the user does not have to pay anything at the time of the switch, and the next payment date will be in 2 days (19,43 – 15) / 2,14 ~ 2 days, on 8 July.
Example 2
A user subscribes to a monthly subscription of € 20 / month (€ 0,67 / day). After 15 days he decides to switch to the weekly subscription of € 15 / week (€ 2,14 / day).
The user did not take advantage of 15 days of the monthly subscription which costs € 0,66 per day, therefore the user has a credit of € 15 * € 0,67 = € 10,05.
The ‘new’ subscription costs € 15. At the time of the switch he will pay the sum of: € 15 – € 10,5 = € 4,95 and will renew at full price after a week.
Customer in debt
He will pay the difference in price and the ‘new’ recurring fee, on the expiration date of the new subscription.
In the ‘My account’ page, users can find the complete list of their subscriptions. The plugin will automatically create a ‘Subscriptions’ endpoint.
Click on the subscription name to see the details of a subscription.
Pause the plan
An active subscription can be paused if that option is enabled in either the general settings or product page. In order to pause, users need to access the detail page of the subscription and click on the “Pause” option.
Users will be free to pause the subscription only if they have not reached the allowed number of times they can perform this operation. If users don’t reactivate the subscription manually, the subscription will reactivate automatically after the number of days set by the admin.
They will be warned about any restrictions when they click on the “Pause” button.
Then, when their plan is paused, they will be able to see a “Resume” button to resume the subscription.
Cancel the plan
You can set the option for the users to allow them to cancel the subscription themselves. If that option is enabled in the product edit page.
The customer will see either a button or a dropdown to cancel the subscription, in their “My Account” page.
Pay the recurring amount
The detail page of the subscription shows the date in which the new payment of the subscription is due.
If users have chosen eg. PayPal or any of the other supported payment gateways, the payment will go through automatically. If they have chosen for another payment method, a new order will be created one day before payment due date. Clicking on the “Pay” button the user can complete the payment.
Resubscribe to the plan
When the subscription is cancelled or expired, users can purchase the subscription again by clicking on the “Resubscribe” button. They will not have to pay the sign-up fee again and there will be no free trial period.
Admin can decide if the resubscribe price will be the same as the old subscription price, or if the price will change to its current value. To change this go to YITH > Subscription > Customization > Subscription section in my account.
Edit subscription billing and shipping address
If users need to update or simply change the billing or shipping address they can change it from the usual Addresses entry in My Account menu.
Yet, if they have more than one subscription, they can edit the address once and have it updated on all active subscriptions in one move. Checking the option Update this address also for my active subscriptions and saving will do the job.
All future renewal orders will use the updated address.
Force payment manually
Whenever the first payment does not go through on the first payment attempt, your users might have to wait for a few days before the second attempt is made and their subscription can be re-activated.
Don’t make them get angry or nervous and allow them to force the payment right from My Account page.
If you are either using YITH Stripe Connect or YITH Account Funds for WooCommerce, your users will be able to see a button named Renew Now next to the suspended subscription plan.
To enable this feature, go to YITH > Subscription > Customization and check the option called Show the Renew Now button on My Account > Orders.
Please, note: the button only appears after the first payment attempt fails and under My Account > Orders. Moreover, it is only available if you are either using YITH Stripe Connect or YITH Account Funds.